OURAGE 

By 

.M.BARRIE 


presented  to  the 
UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
SAN  DIEGO 

by 

From  the  Estate  of 
Mrs.  Anna  L.  Bailhache 


Digitized  by  tine  Internet  Arcliive 

in  2007  witli  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


littp://www.arcliive.org/details/GOurageb00barriala 


// 


COURAGE 


\  i 


/^B^^a 


THE   RECTORIAL  ADDRESS 

DELIVERED  AT  ST.  ANDREWS  UNIVERSITY 

MAY  3,  1922 


COURAGE 


jr^MfBARRIE 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 

1923 


COETSIGHT,  1922,  BT 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


Printed  in  the  Uaited  States  of  America 


TO 

THE  RED  GOWNS  OF  ST.  ANDREWS 


COURAGE 

YOU  have  had  many  rectors  here  in  St. 
Andrews  who  will  continue  in  bloom 
long  after  the  lowly  ones  such  as  I  am 
are  dead  and  rotten  and  forgotten.  They 
are  the  roses  in  December;  you  remem- 
ber someone  said  that  God  gave  us 
memory  so  that  we  might  have  roses  in 
December.  But  I  do  not  envy  the 
great  ones.  In  my  exp>erience — and  you 
may  find  in  the  end  it  is  yours  also — the 
people  I  have  cared  for  most  and  who 
have  seemed  most  worth  caring  for — 
my  December  roses — have  been  very 
simple  folk.  Yet  I  wish  that  for  this 
hour  I  could  swell  into  someone  of  im- 
portance, so  as  to  do  you  credit.  I  sup- 
pose you  had  a  melting  for  me  because 
I  was  hewn  out  of  one  of  your  own 
quarries,  walked  similar  academic  groves, 

m 


COURAGE 


and  have  trudged  the  road  on  which  you 
will  soon  set  forth.  I  would  that  I  could 
put  into  your  hands  a  staff  for  that  some- 
what bloody  march,  for  though  there 
is  much  atx)ut  myself  that  I  conceal  from 
other  people,  to  help  you  I  would  ex- 
pose every  cranny  of  my  mind. 

But,  alas,  when  the  hour  strikes  for 
the  rector  to  answer  to  his  call  he  is  un- 
able to  become  the  undergraduate  he 
used  to  be,  and  so  the  only  door  into  you 
is  closed.  We,  your  elders,  are  much 
more  interested  in  you  than  you  are  in 
us.  We  are  not  really  important  to  you. 
I  have  utterly  forgotten  the  address  of 
the  rector  of  my  time,  and  even  who 
he  was,  but  I  recall  vividly  climbing  up 
a  statue  to  tie  his  colours  round  its  neck 
and  being  hurled  therefrom  with  con- 
tumely. We  remember  the  important 
things.  I  cannot  provide  you  with  that 
staff  for  your  journey;  but  perhaps  I 
[21 


COURAGE 


can  tell  you  a  little  about  it,  how  to  use 
it  and  lose  it  and  find  it  again,  and  cling 
to  it  more  than  ever.  You  shall  cut  it 
— so  it  is  ordained — every  one  of  you  for 
himself,  and  its  name  is  courage.  You 
must  excuse  me  if  I  talk  a  good  deal 
about  courage  to  you  to-day.  There  is 
nothing  else  much  worth  speaking  about 
to  undergraduates  or  graduates  or  white- 
haired  men  and  women.  It  is  the  lovely 
virtue — the  rib  of  Himself  that  God  sent 
down  to  His  children. 

My  special  difficulty  is  that  though 
you  have  had  literary  rectors  here  be- 
fore, they  were  the  big  guns,  the  his- 
torians, the  philosophers;  you  have  had 
none,  I  think,  who  followed  my  more 
humble  branch,  which  may  be  described 
as  playing  hide  and  seek  with  angels. 
My  puppets  seem  more  real  to  me  than 
myself,  and  I  could  get  on  much  more 
swingingly  if  I  made  one  of  them  deliver 
[3] 


COURAGE 


this  address.  It  is  M'Connachie  who 
has  brought  me  to  this  pass.  M'Con- 
nachie, I  should  explain,  as  I  have 
undertaken  to  open  the  innermost  doors, 
is  the  name  I  give  to  the  unruly  half 
of  myself:  the  writing  half.  We  are 
complement  and  supplement.  I  am  the 
half  that  is  dour  and  practical  and 
canny,  he  is  the  fanciful  half;  my  desire 
is  to  be  the  family  solicitor,  standing 
firm  on  my  hearth  rug  among  the  harsh 
realities  of  the  office  furniture;  while 
he  prefers  to  fly  around  on  one  wing. 
I  should  not  mind  him  doing  that, 
but  he  drags  me  with  him.  I  have 
sworn  that  M'Connachie  shall  not  inter- 
fere with  this  address  to-day;  but 
there  is  no  telling.  I  might  have  done 
things  worth  while  if  it  had  not  been  for 
M'Connachie,  and  my  first  piece  of  ad- 
vice to  you  at  any  rate  shall  be  sound: 
don't  copy  me.  A  good  subject  for  a  rec- 
[4] 


COURAGE 


torial  address  would  be  the  mess  the 
rector  himself  has  made  of  life.  I  merely 
cast  this  forth  as  a  suggestion,  and  leave 
the  working  of  it  out  to  my  successor. 
I  do  not  think  it  has  been  used  yet. 

My  own  theme  is  Courage,  as  you 
should  use  it  in  the  great  fight  that  seems 
to  me  to  be  coming  between  youth  and 
their  betters;  by  youth,  meaning,  of 
course,  you,  and  by  your  betters,  us.  I 
want  you  to  take  up  this  position:  That 
youth  have  for  too  long  left  exclusively 
in  our  hands  the  decisions  in  national 
matters  that  are  more  vital  to  them  than 
to  us.  Things  about  the  next  war,  for 
instance,  and  why  the  last  one  ever  had  a 
beginning.  I  use  the  word  fight  be- 
cause it  must,  I  think,  begin  with  a  chal- 
lenge; for  the  aim  is  the  reverse  of  an- 
tagonism, it  is  partnership.  I  want  you 
to  hold  that  the  time  has  arrived  for 
youth  to  demand  a  partnership,  and  to 
demand  it  courageously.  That  to  gain 
[5] 


COURAGE 


courage  is  what  you  come  to  St.  An- 
drews for.  With  some  alarums  and  ex- 
cursions into  college  life.  That  is  what 
I  propose,  but,  of  course,  the  issue  lies 
with  M'Connachie. 

Your  betters  had  no  share  in  the  im- 
mediate cause  of  the  war;  we  know 
what  nation  has  that  blot  to  wipe  out; 
but  for  fifty  years  or  so  we  heeded  not 
the  rumblings  of  the  distant  drum,  I  do 
not  mean  by  lack  of  military  prepara- 
tions; and  when  war  did  come  we  told 
youth,  who  had  to  get  us  out  of  it,  tall 
tales  of  what  it  really  is  and  of  the  clover 
beds  to  which  it  leads.  We  were  not 
meaning  to  deceive,  most  of  us  were  as 
honourable  and  as  ignorant  as  the  youth 
themselves;  but  that  does  not  acquit  us 
of  failings  such  as  stupidity  and  jeal- 
ousy, the  two  black  spots  in  human  na- 
ture which,  more  than  love  of  money, 
are  at  the  root  of  all  evil.  If  you  prefer 
[6] 


COURAGE 


to  leave  things  as  they  are  we  shall  prob- 
ably fail  you  again.  Do  not  be  too  sure 
that  we  have  learned  our  lesson,  and  are 
not  at  this  very  moment  doddering  down 
some  brimstone  path. 

I  am  far  from  implying  that  even 
worse  things  than  war  may  not  come  to 
a  State.  There  are  circumstances  in 
which  nothing  can  so  well  become  a  land, 
as  I  think  this  land  proved  when  the  late 
war  did  break  out  and  there  was  but  one 
thing  to  do.  There  is  a  form  of  anaemia 
that  is  more  rotting  than  even  an  unjust 
war.  The  end  will  indeed  have  come 
to  our  courage  and  to  us  when  we  are 
afraid  in  dire  mischance  to  refer  the 
final  appeal  to  the  arbitrament  of  arms. 
I  suppose  all  the  lusty  of  our  race,  alive 
and  dead,  join  hands  on  that. 

"  And  he  is  dead  who  will  not  fight; 
And  who  dies  fighting  has  increase." 

[7] 


COURAGE 


But  if  you  must  be  in  the  struggle, 
the  more  reason  you  should  know  why, 
before  it  begins,  and  have  a  say  in  the 
decision  whether  it  is  to  begin.  The 
youth  who  went  to  the  war  had  no  such 
knowledge,  no  such  say;  I  am  sure  the 
survivors,  of  whom  there  must  be  a  num- 
ber here  to-day,  want  you  to  be  wiser 
than  they  were,  and  are  certainly  deter- 
mined to  be  wiser  next  time  themselves. 
If  you  are  to  get  that  partnership,  which, 
once  gained,  is  to  be  for  mutual  benefit, 
it  will  be,  I  should  say,  by  banding  your- 
selves with  these  men,  not  defiantly  but 
firmly,  not  for  selfish  ends  but  for  your 
country's  good.  In  the  meantime  they 
have  one  bulwark;  they  have  a  General 
who  is  befriending  them  as  I  think  never, 
after  the  fighting  was  over,  has  a  General 
befriended  his  men  before.  Perhaps  the 
seemly  thing  would  be  for  us,  their  bet- 
ters, to  elect  one  of  these  young  surviv- 
[81 


COURAGE 


ors  of  the  carnage  to  be  our  Rector,  He 
ought  now  to  know  a  few  things  about 
war  that  are  worth  our  hearing.  If  his 
theme  were  the  Rector's  favourite,  dili- 
gence, I  should  be  afraid  of  his  advising 
a  great  many  of  us  to  be  diligent  in  sit- 
ting still  and  doing  no  more  harm. 

Of  course  he  would  put  it  more  suavely 
than  that,  though  it  is  not,  I  think,  by 
gentleness  that  you  will  get  your  rights; 
we  are  dogged  ones  at  sticking  to  what 
we  have  got,  and  so  will  you  be  at  our 
age.  But  avoid  calling  us  ugly  names; 
we  may  be  stubborn  and  we  may  be 
blunderers,  but  we  love  you  more  than 
aught  else  in  the  world,  and  once  you 
have  won  your  partnership  we  shall  all 
be  welcoming  you.  I  urge  you  not  to  use 
ugly  names  about  anyone.  In  the  war 
it  was  not  the  fighting  men  who  were 
distinguished  for  abuse;  as  has  been  well 
said,  "Hell  hath  no  fury  like  a  non- 
[9] 


COURAGE 


combatant."  Never  ascribe  to  an  oppo- 
nent motives  meaner  than  your  own. 
There  may  be  students  here  to-day  who 
have  decided  this  session  to  go  in  for 
immortality,  and  would  like  to  know  of 
an  easy  way  of  accomplishing  it.  That 
is  a  way,  but  not  so  easy  as  you  think. 
Go  through  life  without  ever  ascribing 
to  your  opponents  motives  meaner  than 
your  own.  Nothing  so  lowers  the  moral 
currency;  give  it  up,  and  be  great. 

Another  sure  way  to  fame  is  to  know 
what  you  mean.  It  is  a  solemn  thought 
that  almost  no  one — if  he  is  truly  emi- 
nent— knows  what  he  means.  Look  at 
the  great  ones  of  the  earth,  the  politi- 
cians. We  do  not  discuss  what  they  say, 
but  what  they  may  have  meant  when 
they  said  it.  In  1922  we  are  all  won- 
dering, and  so  are  they,  what  they  meant 
in  1914  and  afterwards.  They  are  pub- 
lishing books  trying  to  find  out;  the  men 
[10] 


COURAGE 


of  action  as  well  as  the  men  of  words. 
There  are  exceptions.  It  is  not  that  our 
statesmen  are  "sugared  mouths  with 
minds  therefrae";  many  of  them  are  the 
best  men  we  have  got,  upright  and  anx- 
ious, nothing  cheaper  than  to  miscall 
them.  The  explanation  seems  just  to  be 
that  it  is  so  difficult  to  know  what  you 
mean,  especially  when  you  have  become  a 
swell.  No  longer  apparently  can  you  deal 
in  "russet  yeas  and  honest  kersey  noes"; 
gone  for  ever  is  simplicity,  which  is  as 
beautiful  as  the  divine  plain  face  of 
Lamb's  Miss  Kelly.  Doubts  breed 
suspicions,  a  dangerous  air.  Without 
suspicion  there  might  have  been  no  war. 
When  you  are  called  to  Downing  Street 
to  discuss  what  you  want  of  your  betters 
with  the  Prime  Minister  he  won't  be 
suspicious,  not  as  far  as  you  can  see; 
but  remember  the  atmosphere  of  gen- 
erations you  are  in,  and  when  he  passes 
[11] 


COURAGE 


you  the  toast-rack  say  to  yourselves,  if 
you  would  be  in  the  mode,  "Now,  I 
wonder  what  he  meant  by  that." 

Even  without  striking  out  in  the  way 
I  suggest,  you  are  already  disturbing 
your  betters  considerably.  I  sometimes 
talk  this  over  with  M'Connachie,  with 
whom,  as  you  may  guess,  circumstances 
compel  me  to  pass  a  good  deal  of  my 
time.  In  our  talks  we  agree  that  we,  your 
betters,  constantly  find  you  forgetting 
that  we  are  your  betters.  Your  answer 
is  that  the  war  and  other  happenings 
have  shown  you  that  age  is  not  neces- 
sarily another  name  for  sapience;  that 
our  avoidance  of  frankness  in  life  and  in 
the  arts  is  often,  but  not  so  often  as  you 
think,  a  cowardly  way  of  shirking  un- 
palatable truths,  and  that  you  have 
taken  us  off  our  pedestals  because  we 
look  more  natural  on  the  ground.  You 
who  are  at  the  rash  age  even  accuse  your 
112] 


COURAGE 


elders,  sometimes  not  without  justifica- 
tion, of  being  more  rash  than  yourselves. 
"  If  Youth  but  only  knew,"  we  used  to 
teach  you  to  sing;  but  now,  just  because 
Youth  has  been  to  the  war,  it  wants  to 
change  the  next  line  into  "  If  Age  had 
only  to  do." 

In  so  far  as  this  attitude  of  yours  is 
merely  passive,  sullen,  negative,  as  it 
mainly  is,  despairing  of  our  capacity  and 
anticipating  a  future  of  gloom,  it  is  no 
game  for  man  or  woman.  It  is  certainly 
the  opposite  of  that  for  which  I  plead. 
EX)  not  stand  aloof,  despising,  disbe- 
lieving, but  come  in  and  help — insist  on 
coming  in  and  helping.  After  all,  we 
have  shown  a  good  deal  of  courage;  and 
your  part  is  to  add  a  greater  courage  to 
it.  There  are  glorious  years  lying  ahead 
of  you  if  you  choose  to  make  them  glori- 
ous. God's  in  His  heaven  still.  So  for- 
ward, brave  hearts.  To  what  adven- 
[13] 


COURAGE 


tures  I  cannot  tell,  but  I  know  that  your 
God  is  watching  to  see  whether  you  are 
adventurous.  I  know  that  the  great 
partnership  is  only  a  first  step,  but  I  do 
not  know  what  are  to  be  the  next  and 
the  next.  The  partnership  is  but  a  tool ; 
what  are  you  to  do  with  it?  Very  little, 
I  warn  you,  if  you  are  merely  thinking  of 
yourselves;  much  if  what  is  at  the  mar- 
row of  your  thoughts  is  a  future  that 
even  you  can  scarcely  hope  to  see. 

Learn  as  a  beginning  how  world- 
shaking  situations  arise  and  how  they 
may  be  countered.  Doubt  all  your 
betters  who  would  deny  you  that  right  of 
partnership.  Begin  by  doubting  all  such 
in  high  places — except,  of  course,  your 
professors.  But  doubt  all  other  pro- 
fessors— yet  not  conceitedly,  as  some  do, 
with  their  noses  in  the  air;  avoid  all  such 
physical  risks.  If  it  necessitates  your 
pushing  some  of  us  out  of  our  places,  still 
[14] 


COURAGE 


push;  you  will  find  it  needs  some  shoving. 
But  the  things  courage  can  do!  The 
things  that  even  incompetence  can  do  if 
it  works  with  singleness  of  purpose.  The 
war  has  done  at  least  one  big  thing:  it 
has  taken  spring  out  of  the  year.  And, 
this  accomplished,  our  leading  people  are 
amazed  to  find  that  the  other  seasons  are 
not  conducting  themselves  as  usual. 
The  spring  of  the  year  lies  buried  in  the 
fields  of  France  and  elsewhere.  By  the 
time  the  next  eruption  comes  it  may  be 
you  who  are  responsible  for  it  and  your 
sons  who  are  in  the  lava.  All,  perhaps, 
because  this  year  you  let  things  slide. 

We  are  a  nice  and  kindly  people,  but 
it  is  already  evident  that  we  are  steal- 
ing back  into  the  old  grooves,  seeking 
cushions  for  our  old  bones,  rather  than 
attempting  to  build  up  a  fairer  future. 
That  is  what  we  mean  when  we  say  that 
the  country  is  settling  down.  Make 
[15] 


COURAGE 


haste,  or  you  will  become  like  us,  with 
only  the  thing  we  proudly  call  experience 
to  add  to  your  stock,  a  poor  exchange 
for  the  generous  feelings  that  time  will 
take  away.  We  have  no  intention  of  giv- 
ing you  your  share.  Look  around  and 
see  how  much  share  Youth  has  now  that 
the  war  is  over.  You  got  a  handsome 
share  while  it  lasted. 

I  expect  we  shall  beat  you;  unless 
your  fortitude  be  doubly  girded  by  a 
desire  to  send  a  message  of  cheer  to 
your  brothers  who  fell,  the  only  message, 
I  believe,  for  which  they  crave;  they  are 
not  worrying  about  their  Aunt  Jane. 
They  want  to  know  if  you  have  learned 
wisely  from  what  befell  them;  if  you 
have,  they  will  be  braced  in  the  feeling 
that  they  did  not  die  in  vain.  Some  of 
them  think  they  did.  They  will  not  take 
our  word  for  it  that  they  did  not.  You 
are  their  living  image;  they  know  you 
[  16  1 


COURAGE 


could  not  lie  to  them,  but  they  distrust 
our  flattery  and  our  cunning  faces.  To 
us  they  have  passed  away;  but  are  you 
who  stepped  into  their  heritage  only 
yesterday,  whose  books  are  scarcely  cold 
to  their  hands,  you  who  still  hear  their 
cries  being  blown  across  the  links — are 
you  already  relegating  them  to  the 
shades  ?  The  gaps  they  have  left  in  this 
University  are  among  the  most  honour- 
able of  her  wounds.  But  we  are  not 
here  to  acclaim  them.  Where  they  are 
now,  hero  is,  I  think,  a  very  little  word. 
They  call  to  you  to  find  out  in  time  the 
truth  about  this  great  game,  which  your 
elders  play  for  stakes  and  Youth  plays 
for  its  life. 

I  do  not  know  whether  you  are  grown 
a  little  tired  of  that  word  hero,  but  I  am 
sure  the  heroes  are.  That  is  the  subject 
of  one  of  our  unfinished  plays;  M'Con- 
nachie  is  the  one  who  writes  the  plays. 
[17] 


COURAGE 


If  any  one  of  you  here  proposes  to  be  a 
playwright  you  can  take  this  for  your 
own  and  finish  it.  The  scene  is  a  school, 
schoolmasters  present,  but  if  you  like 
you  could  make  it  a  university,  pro- 
fessors present.  They  are  discussing  an 
illuminated  scroll  about  a  student  fallen 
in  the  war,  which  they  have  kindly  pre- 
sented to  his  parents;  and  unexpectedly 
the  parents  enter.  They  are  an  old 
pair,  backbent,  they  have  been  stal- 
warts in  their  day  but  have  now  gone 
small;  they  are  poor,  but  not  so  poor 
that  they  could  not  send  their  boy  to 
college.  They  are  in  black,  not  such  a 
rusty  black  either,  and  you  may  be 
sure  she  is  the  one  who  knows  what  to 
do  with  his  hat.  Their  faces  are  gnarled, 
I  suppose — ^but  I  do  not  need  to  de- 
scribe that  pair  to  Scottish  students. 
They  have  come  to  thank  the  Senatus 
for  their  lovely  scroll  and  to  ask  them  to 
[18] 


COURAGE 


tear  it  up.  At  first  they  had  been  en- 
amoured to  read  of  what  a  scholar  their 
son  was,  how  noble  and  adored  by  all. 
But  soon  a  fog  settled  over  them,  for 
this  grand  person  was  not  the  boy  they 
knew.  He  had  many  a  fault  well  known 
to  them;  he  was  not  always  so  noble; 
as  a  scholar  he  did  no  more  than  scrape 
through;  and  he  sometimes  made  his 
father  rage  and  his  mother  grieve. 
They  had  liked  to  talk  such  memories 
as  these  together,  and  smile  over  them, 
as  if  they  were  bits  of  him  he  had  left 
lying  about  the  house.  So  thank  you 
kindly,  and  would  you  please  give  them 
back  their  boy  by  tearing  up  the  scroll  ? 
I  see  nothing  else  for  our  dramatist  to 
do.  I  think  he  should  ask  an  alumna 
of  St.  Andrews  to  play  the  old  lady  (in- 
dicating Miss  Ellen  Terry).  The  love- 
liest of  all  young  actresses,  the  dearest 
of  all  old  ones;  it  seems  only  yesterday 
[  19] 


COURAGE 


that  all  the  men  of  imagination  proposed 
to  their  beloveds  in  some  such  frenzied 
words  as  these,  "As  I  can't  get  Miss 
Terry,  may  I  have  you?" 

This  play  might  become  historical  as 
the  opening  of  your  propaganda  in  the 
proposed  campaign.  How  to  make  a 
practical  advance?  The  League  of  Na- 
tions is  a  very  fine  thing,  but  it  cannot 
save  you,  because  it  will  be  run  by  us. 
Beware  your  betters  bringing  presents. 
What  is  wanted  is  something  run  by 
yourselves.  You  have  more  in  common 
with  the  youth  of  other  lands  than 
Youth  and  Age  can  ever  have  with  each 
other;  even  the  hostile  countries  sent 
out  many  a  son  very  like  ours,  from  the 
same  sort  of  homes,  the  same  sort  of 
universities,  who  had  as  little  to  do  as 
our  youth  had  with  the  origin  of  the 
great  adventure.  Can  we  doubt  that 
many  of  these  on  both  sides  who  have 
[20] 


COURAGE 


gone  over  and  were  once  opponents  are 
now  friends?  You  ought  to  have  a 
League  of  Youth  of  all  countries  as  your 
beginning,  ready  to  say  to  all  Govern- 
ments, "We  will  fight  each  other  but  only 
when  we  are  sure  of  the  necessity." 
Are  you  equal  to  your  job,  you  young 
men  ?  If  not,  I  call  upon  the  red-gowned 
women  to  lead  the  way.  I  sound  to 
myself  as  if  I  were  advocating  a  rebel- 
lion, though  I  am  really  asking  for  a 
larger  friendship.  Perhaps  I  may  be  ar- 
rested on  leaving  the  hall.  In  such  a 
cause  I  should  think  that  I  had  at  last 
proved  myself  worthy  to  be  your  Rector. 
You  will  have  to  work  harder  than 
ever,  but  px)ssibly  not  so  much  at  the 
same  things;  more  at  modern  languages 
certainly  if  you  are  to  discuss  that 
League  of  Youth  with  the  students  of 
other  nations  when  they  come  over  to 
St.  Andrews  for  the  Conference.  I  am 
[21] 


COURAGE 


far  from  taking  a  side  against  the  classics. 
I  should  as  soon  argue  against  your  hav- 
ing tops  to  your  heads;  that  way  lie 
the  best  tops.  Science,  too,  has  at  last 
come  to  its  own  in  St.  Andrews.  It  is 
the  surest  means  of  teaching  you  how  to 
know  what  you  mean  when  you  say. 
So  you  will  have  to  work  harder.  Isaak 
Walton  quotes  the  saying  that  doubt- 
less the  Almighty  could  have  created 
a  finer  fruit  than  the  strawberry,  but 
that  doubtless  also  He  never  did. 
Doubtless  also  He  could  have  provided 
us  with  better  fun  than  hard  work,  but 
I  don't  know  what  it  is.  To  be  born 
poor  is  probably  the  next  best  thing. 
The  greatest  glory  that  has  ever  come 
to  me  was  to  be  swallowed  up  in  Lon- 
don, not  knowing  a  soul,  with  no  means 
of  subsistence,  and  the  fun  of  working 
till  the  stars  went  out.  To  have  known 
anyone  would  have  spoilt  it.  I  did  not 
[22] 


COURAGE 


even  quite  know  the  language.  I  rang 
for  my  boots,  and  they  thought  I  said  a 
glass  of  water,  so  I  drank  the  water  and 
worked  on.  There  was  no  food  in  the 
cupboard,  so  I  did  not  need  to  waste 
time  in  eating.  The  pangs  and  agonies 
when  no  proof  came.  How  courteously 
tolerant  was  I  of  the  postman  without  a 
proof  for  us;  how  M'Connachie,  on  the 
other  hand,  wanted  to  punch  his  head. 
The  magic  days  when  our  article  ap- 
peared in  an  evening  paper.  The 
promptitude  with  which  I  counted  the 
lines  to  see  how  much  we  should  get  for 
it.  Then  M'Connachie's  superb  air  of 
dropping  it  into  the  gutter.  Oh,  to  be 
a  free  lance  of  journalism  again — that 
darling  jade!  Those  were  days.  Too 
good  to  last.  Let  us  be  grave.  Here 
comes  a  Rector. 

But  now,  on  reflection,  a  dreadful 
sinking  assails  me,  that  this  was  not 
[23] 


COURAGE 


really  work.  The  artistic  callings — you 
rememtjer  how  Stevenson  thumped  them 
— are  merely  doing  what  you  are  clam- 
orous to  be  at;  it  is  not  real  work  unless 
you  would  rather  be  doing  something 
else.  My  so-called  labours  were  just 
M'Connachie  running  away  with  me 
again.  Still,  I  have  sometimes  worked; 
for  instance,  I  feel  that  I  am  working  at 
this  moment.  And  the  big  guns  are  in 
the  same  plight  as  the  little  ones. 
Carlyle,  the  king  of  all  rectors,  has 
always  been  accepted  as  the  arch-apostle 
of  toil,  and  has  registered  his  many 
woes.  But  it  will  not  do.  Despite  sick- 
ness, poortith,  want  and  all,  he  was 
grinding  all  his  life  at  the  one  job  he 
revelled  in.  An  extraordinarily  happy 
man,  though  there  is  no  direct  proof  that 
he  thought  so. 

There  must  be  many  men  in  other 
callings  besides  the  arts  lauded  as  hard 
124  1 


COURAGE 


workers  who  are  merely  out  for  enjoy- 
ment. Our  Chancellor  ?  (indicating  Lord 
Haig).  If  our  Chancellor  had  always  a 
passion  to  be  a  soldier,  we  must  recon- 
sider him  as  a  worker.  Even  our  Prin- 
cipal ?  How  about  the  light  that  burns 
in  our  Principal's  room  after  decent  peo- 
ple have  gone  to  bed  ?  If  we  could  climb 
up  and  look  in — I  should  like  to  do  some- 
thing of  that  kind  for  the  last  time — 
should  we  find  him  engaged  in  honest 
toil,  or  guiltily  engrossed  in  chemistry? 
You  will  all  fall  into  one  of  those  two 
callings,  the  joyous  or  the  uncongenial; 
and  one  wishes  you  into  the  first,  though 
our  sympathy,  our  esteem,  must  go 
rather  to  the  less  fortunate,  the  braver 
ones  who  "turn  their  necessity  to  glori- 
ous gain"  after  they  have  put  away 
their  dreams.  To  the  others  will  go  the 
easy  prizes  of  life — ^success,  which  has 
become  a  somewhat  odious  onion  now- 
[25] 


COURAGE 


adays,  chiefly  because  we  so  often  give 
the  name  to  the  wrong  thing.  When 
you  reach  the  evening  of  your  days  you 
will,  I  think,  see — with,  I  hope,  be- 
coming cheerfulness — that  we  are  all 
failures,  at  least  all  the  best  of  us.  The 
greatest  Scotsman  that  ever  lived  wrote 
himself  down  a  failure: 

"The  poor  Inhabitant  below 
Was  quick  to  learn  and  wise  to  know. 
And  keenly  felt  the  friendly  glow 

And  softer  flame. 
But  thoughtless  follies  laid  him  low. 

And  stained  his  name." 

Perhaps  the  saddest  lines  in  poetry, 
written  by  a  man  who  could  make 
things  new  for  the  gods  themselves. 

If  you  want  to  avoid  being  like  Burns 
there  are  several  possible  ways.  Thus 
you  might  copy  us,  as  we  shine  forth 
in  our  published  memoirs,  practically 
without  a  flaw.  No  one  so  obscure 
nowadays  but  that  he  can  have  a  book 
1  26  1 


COURAGE 


about  him.    Happy  the  land  that  can 
produce  such  subjects  for  the  pen. 

But  do  not  put  your  photograph  at  all 
ages  into  your  autobiography.  That 
may  bring  you  to  the  ground.  "My 
Life;  and  what  I  have  done  with  it"; 
that  is  the  sort  of  title,  but  it  is  the  photo- 
graphs that  give  away  what  you  have 
done  with  it.  Grim  things,  those  por- 
traits; if  you  could  read  the  language  of 
them  you  would  often  find  it  unnecessary 
to  read  the  book.  The  face  itself,  of 
course,  is  still  more  tell-tale,  for  it  is  the 
record  of  all  one's  past  life.  There  the 
man  stands  in  the  dock,  page  by  page; 
we  ought  to  be  able  to  see  each  chapter 
of  him  melting  into  the  next  like  the 
figures  in  the  cinematograph.  Even  the 
youngest  of  you  has  got  through  some 
chapters  already.  When  you  go  home 
for  the  next  vacation  some  one  is  sure 
to  say  "John  has  changed  a  little;  I 
[27] 


COURAGE 


don't  quite  see  in  what  way,  but  he  has 
changed."  You  remember  they  said 
that  last  vacation.  Perhaps  it  means 
that  you  look  less  like  your  father. 
Think  that  out.  I  could  say  some  nice 
things  of  your  betters  if  I  chose. 

In  youth  you  tend  to  look  rather 
frequently  into  a  mirror,  not  at  all 
necessarily  from  vanity.  You  say  to 
yourself,  "What  an  interesting  face;  I 
wonder  what  he  is  to  be  up  to?"  Your 
elders  do  not  look  into  the  mirror  so 
often.  We  know  what  he  has  been  up 
to.  As  yet  there  is  unfortunately  no 
science  of  reading  other  people's  faces; 
I  think  a  chair  for  this  should  be  founded 
in  St.  Andrews. 

The  new  professor  will  need  to  be  a 
sublime  philosopher,  and  for  obvious 
reasons  he  ought  to  wear  spectacles  be- 
fore his  senior  class.     It  will  be  a  glori- 
[28] 


COURAGE 


ously  optimistic  chair,  for  he  can  tell  his 
students  the  glowing  truth,  that  what 
their  faces  are  to  be  like  presently  de- 
pends mainly  on  themselves.  Mainly, 
not  altogether — 

*'  I  am  the  master  of  my  fate, 
I  am  the  captain  of  my  soul." 

I  found  the  other  day  an  old  letter 
from  Henley  that  told  me  of  the  circum- 
stances in  which  he  wrote  that  poem. 
"  I  was  a  patient,"  he  writes,  "in  the  old 
infirmary  of  Edinburgh.  I  had  heard 
vaguely  of  Lister,  and  went  there  as  a 
sort  of  forlorn  hope  on  the  chance  of 
saving  my  foot.  The  great  surgeon  re- 
ceived me,  as  he  did  and  does  everybody, 
with  the  greatest  kindness,  and  for 
twenty  months  I  lay  in  one  or  other 
ward  of  the  old  place  under  his  care.  It 
was  a  desperate  business,  but  he  saved 
my  foot,  and  here  I  am."  There  he 
was,  ladies  and  gentlemen,  and  what  he 
[29  1 


COURAGE 


was  doing  during  that  "desperate  busi- 
ness" was  singing  that  he  was  master  of 
his  fate. 

If  you  want  an  example  of  courage  try 
Henley.  Or  Stevenson.  I  could  tell 
you  some  stories  about  these  two,  but 
they  would  not  be  dull  enough  for  a  rec- 
torial address.  For  courage,  again,  take 
Meredith,  whose  laugh  was  "as  broad 
as  a  thousand  beaves  at  pasture." 
Take,  as  I  think,  the  greatest  figure 
literature  has  still  left  to  us,  to  be  added 
to-day  to  the  roll  of  St.  Andrews  alumni, 
though  it  must  be  in  absence.  The 
pomp  and  circumstance  of  war  will  pass, 
and  all  others  now  alive  may  fade  from 
the  scene,  but  I  think  the  quiet  figure 
of  Hardy  will  live  on. 

I  seem  to  be  taking  all  my  examples 

from  the  calling  I  was  lately  pretending 

to  despise.    I  should  like  to  read  you 

some  passages  of  a  letter  from  a  man  of 

130  1 


COURAGE 


another  calling,  which  I  think  will 
hearten  you.  I  have  the  little  filmy 
sheets  here.  I  thought  you  might  like 
to  see  the  actual  letter;  it  has  been  a  long 
journey ;  it  has  been  to  the  South  Pole. 
It  is  a  letter  to  me  from  Captain  Scott 
of  the  Antarctic,  and  was  written  in  the 
tent  you  know  of,  where  it  was  found 
long  afterwards  with  his  body  and  those 
of  some  other  very  gallant  gentlemen, 
his  comrades.  The  writing  is  in  pencil, 
still  quite  clear,  though  toward  the  end 
some  of  the  words  trail  away  as  into  the 
great  silence  that  was  waiting  for  them. 
It  begins:  "We  are  pegging  out  in  a  very 
comfortless  spot.  Hoping  this  letter 
may  be  found  and  sent  to  you,  I  write 
you  a  word  of  farewell.  I  want  you  to 
think  well  of  me  and  my  end."  [After 
some  private  instructions  too  intimate 
to  read,  he  goes  on]:  "Goodbye — I  am 
not  at  all  afraid  of  the  end,  but  sad  to 
miss  many  a  simple  pleasure  which  I  had 
[31  1 


COURAGE 


planned  for  the  future  in  our  long 
marches.  .  .  .  We  are  in  a  desperate 
state— feet  frozen,  etc.,  no  fuel,  and  a 
long  way  from  food,  but  it  would  do  your 
heart  good  to  be  in  our  tent,  to  hear  our 
songs  and  our  cheery  conversation.  .  .  . 
Later — [it  is  here  that  the  words  be- 
come difficult] — We  are  very  near  the 
end.  .  .  .  We  did  intend  to  finish  our- 
selves when  things  proved  like  this, 
but  we  have  decided  to  die  naturally 
without." 

I  think  it  may  uplift  you  all  to  stand 
for  a  moment  by  that  tent  and  listen, 
as  he  says,  to  their  songs  and  cheery 
conversation.  When  I  think  of  Scott  I 
remember  the  strange  Alpine  story  of 
the  youth  who  fell  down  a  glacier  and 
was  lost,  and  of  how  a  scientific  com- 
panion, one  of  several  who  accompanied 
him,  all  young,  computed  that  the  body 
would  again  appear  at  a  certain  date  and 
place  many  years  afterwards.  When 
[32] 


COURAGE 


that  time  came  round  some  of  the  sur- 
vivors returned  to  the  glacier  to  see  if  the 
prediction  would  be  fulfilled;  all  old  men 
now;  and  the  body  reappeared  as  young 
as  on  the  day  he  left  them.  So  Scott 
and  his  comrades  emerge  out  of  the 
white  immensities  always  young. 

How  comely  a  thing  is  affliction  borne 
cheerfully,  which  is  not  beyond  the  reach 
of  the  humblest  of  us.  What  is  beauty? 
It  is  these  hard-bitten  men  singing  cour- 
age to  you  from  their  tent ;  it  is  the  waves 
of  their  island  home  crooning  of  their 
deeds  to  you  who  are  to  follow  them. 
Sometimes  beauty  boils  over  and  then 
spirits  are  abroad.  Ages  may  pass  as 
we  look  or  listen,  for  time  is  annihi- 
lated. There  is  a  very  old  legend  told 
to  me  by  Nansen  the  explorer — I  like 
well  to  be  in  the  company  of  explorers 
— the  legend  of  a  monk  who  had  wan- 
dered into  the  fields  and  a  lark  began  to 
sing.  He  had  never  heard  a  lark  before, 
[331 


COURAGE 


and  he  stood  there  entranced  until  the 
bird  and  its  song  had  become  part  of 
the  heavens.  Then  he  went  back  to 
the  monastery  and  found  there  a  door- 
keeper whom  he  did  not  know  and  who 
did  not  know  him.  Other  monks  came, 
and  they  were  all  strangers  to  him.  He 
told  them  he  was  Father  Anselm,  but 
that  was  no  help.  Finally  they  looked 
through  the  books  of  the  monastery,  and 
these  revealed  that  there  had  been  a 
Father  Anselm  there  a  hundred  or  more 
years  before.  Time  had  been  blotted 
out  while  he  listened  to  the  lark. 

That,  I  suppose,  was  a  case  of  beauty 
boiling  over,  or  a  soul  boiling  over;  per- 
haps the  same  thing.    Then  spirits  walk. 

They  must  sometimes  walk  St. 
Andrews.  I  do  not  mean  the  ghosts  of 
queens  or  prelates,  but  one  that  keeps 
step,  as  soft  as  snow,  with  some  poor 
student.  He  sometimes  catches  sight 
134  1 


COURAGE 


of  it.  That  is  why  his  fellows  can  never 
quite  touch  him,  their  best  beloved; 
he  half  knows  something  of  which  they 
know  nothing — the  secret  that  is  hidden 
in  the  face  of  the  Monna  Lisa.  As  I  see 
him,  life  is  so  beautiful  to  him  that  its 
proportions  are  monstrous.  Perhaps  his 
childhood  may  have  been  overfull  of 
gladness;  they  don't  like  that.  If  the 
seekers  were  kind  he  is  the  one  for  whom 
the  flags  of  his  college  would  fly  one  day. 
But  the  seeker  I  am  thinking  of  is  un- 
friendly, and  so  our  student  is  "the  lad 
that  will  never  be  old."  He  often  gaily 
forgets,  and  thinks  he  has  slain  his  foe 
by  daring  him,  like  him  who,  dreading 
water,  was  always  the  first  to  leap  into 
it.  One  can  see  him  serene,  astride  a 
Scotch  cliff,  singing  to  the  sun  the  fare- 
well thanks  of  a  boy: 

"  Throned  on  a  cliff  serene  Man  saw  the  sun 
hold  a  red  torch  above  the  farthest  seas, 
and  the  fierce  island  pinnacles  put  on 

[35] 


COURAGE 


In  his  defence  their  sombre  panoplies; 
Foremost  the  white  mists  eddied,  trailed,  and 

spun 
like  seekers,  emulous  to  clasp  his  knees, 
till  all  the  beauty  of  the  scene  seemed  one, 
led  by  the  secret  whispers  of  the  breeze. 

"The  sun's  torch  suddenly  flashed  upon  his  face 
and  died;  and  he  sat  content  in  subject  night, 
and    dreamed  of   an   old   dead   foe  that  had 

sought  and  found  him; 
a  beast  stirred  boldly  in  his  resting-place; 
And  the  cold  came;  Man  rose  to  his  master- 
height, 
shivered,  and  turned  away;  but  the  mists  were 
round  him." 

If  there  is  any  of  you  here  so  rare  that 

the  seekers  have  taken  an  ill-will  to  him, 

as  to  the  boy  who  wrote  those  lines,  I  ask 

you  to  be  careful.    Henley  says  in  that 

poem  we  were  speaking  of: 

"  Under  the  bludgeonings  of  Chance 
My  head  is  bloody  but  unbowed." 

A  fine  mouthful,  but  perhaps  "My 
head  is  bloody  and  bowed"  is  better. 

Let  us  get  back  to  that  tent  with  its 
songs  and  cheery  conversation.  Cour- 
136] 


COURAGE 


age.  I  do  not  think  it  is  to  be  got  by 
your  becoming  solemn-sides  before  your 
time.  You  must  have  been  warned 
against  letting  the  golden  hours  slip  by. 
Yes,  but  some  of  them  are  golden  only 
because  we  let  them  slip.  Diligence — 
ambition;  noble  words,  but  only  if 
"touched  to  fine  issues."  Prizes  may 
be  dross,  learning  lumber,  unless  they 
bring  you  into  the  arena  with  increased 
understanding.  Hanker  not  too  much 
after  worldly  prosperity — that  corpulent 
cigar;  if  you  became  a  millionaire  you 
would  probably  go  swimming  around  for 
more  like  a  diseased  goldfish.  Look  to 
it  that  what  you  are  doing  is  not  merely 
toddling  to  a  competency.  Perhaps  that 
must  be  your  fate,  but  fight  it  and  then, 
though  you  fail,  you  may  still  be  among 
the  elect  of  whom  we  have  spoken. 
Many  a  grave  man  has  had  to  come  to  it 
at  last.  But  there  are  the  complacent 
[37] 


COURAGE 


toddlers  from  the  start.  Favour  them 
not,  ladies,  especially  now  that  every  one 
of  you  carries  a  possible  marechal's  baton 
under  her  gown.  "  Happy,"  it  has  been 
said  by  a  distinguished  man,  "is  he  who 
can  leave  college  with  an  unreproaching 
conscience  and  an  unsullied  heart."  I 
don't  know;  he  sounds  to  me  like  a 
sloppy,  watery  sort  of  fellow;  happy, 
perhaps,  but  if  there  be  red  blood  in  him 
impossible.  Be  not  disheartened  by 
ideals  of  perfection  which  can  be 
achieved  only  by  those  who  run  away. 
Nature,  that  "thrifty  goddess,"  never 
gave  you  "the  smallest  scruple  of  her 
excellence"  for  that.  Whatever  bludg- 
eonings  may  be  gathering  for  you,  I  think 
one  feels  more  poignantly  at  your  age 
than  ever  again  in  life.  You  have  not 
our  December  roses  to  help  you;  but  you 
have  June  coming,  whose  roses  do  not 
wonder,  as  do  ours  even  while  they  give 
[38] 


COURAGE 


us  their  fragrance — wondering  most 
wiien  tliey  give  us  most — tliat  we  sliould 
linger  on  an  empty  scene.  It  may  in- 
deed be  monstrous  but  possibly  cour- 
ageous. 

Courage  is  the  thing.  All  goes  if  cour- 
age goes.  What  says  our  glorious  John- 
son of  courage:  "Unless  a  man  has  that 
virtue  he  has  no  security  for  preserving 
any  other."  We  should  thank  our  Cre- 
ator three  times  daily  for  courage  instead 
of  for  our  bread,  which,  if  we  work,  is 
surely  the  one  thing  we  have  a  right  to 
claim  of  Him.  This  courage  is  a  proof 
of  our  immortality,  greater  even  than 
gardens  "when  the  eve  is  cool."  Pray 
for  it.  "Who  rises  from  prayer  a  better 
man,  his  prayer  is  answered."  Be  not 
merely  courageous,  but  light-hearted 
and  gay.  There  is  an  officer  who  was 
the  first  of  our  army  to  land  at  Gal- 
lipoli.  He  was  dropped  overboard  to 
[39] 


COURAGE 


light  decoys  on  the  shore,  so  as  to  de- 
ceive the  Turks  as  to  where  the  land- 
ing was  to  be.  He  pushed  a  raft  con- 
taining these  in  front  of  him.  It  was  a 
frosty  night,  and  he  was  naked  and 
painted  black.  Firing  from  the  ships 
was  going  on  all  around.  It  was  a  two- 
hours'  swim  in  pitch  darkness.  He  did 
it,  crawled  through  the  scrub  to  listen 
to  the  talk  of  the  enemy,  who  were  so 
near  that  he  could  have  shaken  hands 
with  them,  lit  his  decoys  and  swam 
back.  He  seemed  to  look  on  this  as  a 
gay  affair.  He  is  a  V.  C.  now,  and  you 
would  not  think  to  look  at  him  that 
he  could  ever  have  presented  such  a 
disreputable  appearance.  Would  you? 
(indicating  Colonel  Freyberg). 

Those  men  of  whom   I  have  been 

speaking  as  the  kind  to  fill  the  fife 

could  all  be  light-hearted  on  occasion. 

I  remember  Scott  by  highland  streams 

[40] 


COURAGE 


trying  to  rouse  me  by  maintaining  that 
haggis  is  boiled  bagpipes;  Henley  in 
dispute  as  to  whether,  say,  Turgenieff 
or  Tolstoi  could  hang  the  other  on 
his  watch-chain;  he  sometimes  clenched 
the  argument  by  casting  his  crutch 
at  you;  Stevenson  responded  in  the 
same  gay  spirit  by  giving  that  crutch 
to  John  Silver;  you  remember  with 
what  adequate  results.  You  must  cul- 
tivate this  light-heartedness  if  you  are 
to  hang  your  betters  on  your  watch- 
chains.  Dr.  Johnson — let  us  have  him 
again — does  not  seem  to  have  discov- 
ered in  his  travels  that  the  Scots  are  a 
light-hearted  nation.  Boswell  took  him 
to  task  for  saying  that  the  death  of  Gar- 
rick  had  eclipsed  the  gaiety  of  nations. 
"Well,  sir,"  Johnson  said,  "there  may 
be  occasions  when  it  is  permissible  to," 
etc.  But  Boswell  would  not  let  go.  "  I 
cannot  see,  sir,  how  it  could  in  any  case 
F41  1 


COURAGE 


have  eclipsed  the  gaiety  of  nations,  as 
England  was  the  only  nation  before 
whom  he  had  ever  played."  Johnson 
was  really  stymied,  but  you  would  never 
have  known  it.  "Well,  sir,"  he  said, 
holing  out,  "  I  understand  that  Garrick 
once  played  in  Scotland,  and  if  Scotland 
has  any  gaiety  to  eclipse,  which,  sir,  I 

deny " 

Prove  Johnson  wrong  for  once  at  the 
Students'  Union  and  in  your  other  so- 
cieties. I  much  regret  that  there  was 
no  Students'  Union  at  Edinburgh  in  my 
time.  I  hope  you  are  fairly  noisy  and 
that  members  are  sometimes  led  out. 
Do  you  keep  to  the  old  topics?  King 
Charles's  head ;  and  Bacon  wrote  Shakes- 
peare, or  if  he  did  not  he  missed  the  op- 
portunity of  his  life.  Don't  forget  to 
speak  scornfully  of  the  Victorian  age; 
there  will  be  time  for  meekness  when 
you  try  to  better  it.  Very  soon  you  will 
142] 


COURAGE 


be  Victorian  or  that  sort  of  tiling  your- 
selves; next  session  probably,  when  the 
freshmen  come  up.  Afterwards,  if  you 
go  in  for  my  sort  of  calling,  don't  begin 
by  thinking  you  are  the  last  word  in  art; 
quite  possibly  you  are  not;  steady  your- 
selves by  remembering  that  there  were 
great  men  before  William  K.  Smith. 
Make  merry  while  you  may.  Yet  light- 
heartedness  is  not  for  ever  and  a  day. 
At  its  best  it  is  the  gay  companion  of 
innocence;  and  when  innocence  goes — 
as  go  it  must — they  soon  trip  off  to- 
gether, looking  for  something  younger. 
But  courage  comes  all  the  way: 

"Fight  on,  my  men,  says  Sir  Andrew  Barton, 
I  am  hurt,  but  I  am  not  slaine ; 
I'll  lie  me  down  and  bleed  a- while, 
And  then  I'll  rise  and  fight  againe." 

Another  piece  of  advice;  almost  my  last. 

For  reasons  you  may  guess  I  must  give 

this  in  a  low  voice.    Beware  of  M'Con- 

[43] 


COURAGE 


nachie.  When  I  look  in  a  mirror  now 
it  is  his  face  I  see.  I  speak  with  his 
voice.  I  once  had  a  voice  of  my  own, 
but  nowadays  I  hear  it  from  far  away 
only,  a  melancholy,  lonely,  lost  little 
pifje.  I  wanted  to  be  an  explorer,  but 
he  willed  otherwise.  You  will  all  have 
your  M'Connachies  luring  you  off  the 
high  road.  Unless  you  are  constantly 
on  the  watch,  you  will  find  that  he  has 
slowly  pushed  you  out  of  yourself  and 
taken  your  place.  He  has  rather  done 
for  me.  I  think  in  his  youth  he  must 
somehow  have  guessed  the  future  and 
been  fleggit  by  it,  flichtered  from  the 
nest  like  a  bird,  and  so  our  eggs  were 
left,  cold.  He  has  clung  to  me,  less 
from  mischief  than  for  companionship; 
I  half  like  him  and  his  penny  whistle; 
with  all  his  faults  he  is  as  Scotch  as 
peat;  he  whispered  to  me  just  now 
that  you  elected  him,  not  me,  as  your 
Rector. 

[441 


COURAGE 


A  final  passing  thought.  Were  an  old 
student  given  an  hour  in  which  to  re- 
visit the  St.  Andrews  of  his  day,  would 
he  spend  more  than  half  of  it  at  lec- 
tures? He  is  more  likely  to  be  heard 
clattering  up  bare  stairs  in  search  of  old 
companions.  But  if  you  could  choose 
your  hour  from  all  the  five  hundred 
years  of  this  seat  of  learning,  wandering 
at  your  will  from  one  age  to  another, 
how  would  you  spend  it  ?  A  fascinating 
theme;  so  many  notable  shades  at  once 
astir  that  St.  Leonard's  and  St.  Mary's 
grow  murky  with  them.  Hamilton, 
Melville,  Sharpe,  Chalmers,  down  to 
Herkless,  that  distinguished  Principal, 
ripe  scholar  and  warm  friend,  the  loss  of 
whom  I  deeply  deplore  with  you.  I 
think  if  that  hour  were  mine,  and  though 
at  St.  Andrews  he  was  but  a  passer-by, 
I  would  give  a  handsome  part  of  it  to  a 
walk  with  Dr.  Johnson.  I  should  like 
to  have  the  time  of  day  passed  to  me  in 
145  1 


COURAGE 


twelve  languages  by  the  Admirable 
Crichton.  A  wave  of  the  hand  to  An- 
drew Lang;  and  then  for  the  archery 
butts  with  the  gay  Montrose,  all  a-ruffled 
and  ringed,  and  in  the  gallant  St.  An- 
drews student  manner,  continued  as  I 
understand,  to  this  present  day,  scatter- 
ing largess  as  he  rides  along, 

"But  where  Is  now  the  courtly  troupe 
That  once  went  riding  by? 
I  miss  the  curls  of  Canteloupe, 
The  laugh  of  Lady  Di." 

We  have  still  left  time  for  a  visit  to  a 
house  in  South  Street,  hard  by  St. 
Leonard's.  I  do  not  mean  the  house  you 
mean.  I  am  a  Knox  man.  But  little 
will  that  avail,  for  M'Connachie  is  a 
Queen  Mary  man.  So,  after  all,  it  is  at 
her  door  we  chap,  a  last  futile  effort  to 
bring  that  woman  to  heel.  One  more 
house  of  call,  a  student's  room,  also  in 
South  Street.  I  have  chosen  my  student, 
146] 


COURAGE 


you  see,  and  I  have  chosen  well;  him 
that  sang — 

"  Life  has  not  since  been  wholly  vain, 
And  now  I  bear 
Of  wisdom  p!ucl<ed  from  joy  and  pain 
Some  slender  share. 

"But  howsoever  rich  the  store, 
I'd  lay  it  down 
To  feel  upon  my  back  once  more 
The  old  red  gown." 

Well,  we  have  at  last  come  to  an  end. 
Some  of  you  may  remember  when  I  be- 
gan this  address;  we  are  all  older  now. 
I  thank  you  for  your  patience.  This  is 
my  first  and  last  public  appearance,  and 
I  never  could  or  would  have  made  it 
except  to  a  gathering  of  Scottish  stu- 
dents. If  I  have  concealed  my  emotions 
in  addressing  you  it  is  only  the  thrawn 
national  way  that  deceives  everybody 
except  Scotsmen.  I  have  not  been  as 
dull  as  I  could  have  wished  to  be;  but 
looking  at  your  glowing  faces  cheerful- 
[47] 


COURAGE 


ness  and  hope  would  keep  breaking 
through.  Despite  the  imperfections  of 
your  betters  we  leave  you  a  great  in- 
heritance, for  which  others  will  one  day 
call  you  to  account.  You  come  of  a 
race  of  men  the  very  wind  of  whose 
name  has  swept  to  the  ultimate  seas. 
Remember — 

"  Heaven  doth  with  us  as  we  with  torches  do, 
Not  light  them  for  themselves.  .  .  ." 

Mighty  are  the  Universities  of  Scot- 
land, and  they  will  prevail.  But  even 
in  your  highest  exultations  never  forget 
that  they  are  not  four,  but  five.  The 
greatest  of  them  is  the  poor,  proud  homes 
you  come  out  of,  which  said  so  long  ago: 
"There  shall  be  education  in  this  land." 
She,  not  St.  Andrews,  is  the  oldest  uni- 
versity in  Scotland,  and  all  the  others 
are  her  whelps. 

In  bidding  you   good-bye,  my  last 
words  must  be  of  the  lovely  virtue. 
148] 


COURAGE 


Courage,  my  children,  and  "greet  the 
unseen  with  a  cheer."  "Fight  on,  my 
men,"  said  Sir  Andrew  Barton.  Fight 
on — you — for  the  old  red  gown  till  the 
whistle  blows. 


149] 


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